Congressional candidate Bo Hines clearly sees North Carolina voters as facilitators of his ambitions. Twenty-six years old and possessed of scant experience in life and none in politics, the young Hines thirsts for a political career. Who elects him to office and what their interests happen to be are immaterial. He is, in sum, the supreme opportunist.

Bo Hines grew up in Charlotte, seemingly in comfort based on what one may surmise from his high-school pedigree. He graduated from an elite private school in the city. A football star, he played one season for the NC State Wolfpack before transferring to Yale University. Why Yale? Because, by his own attestation, the elite Connecticut institution would launch him into the world of politics more potently than the relatively humble North Carolina State. Hines most recently attended Wake Forest School of Law in Winston-Salem, where he resides today.

The naive observer may find themselves perplexed at why a Charlotte native who lives in the Triad would be running for office in North Carolina’s Thirteenth Congressional district. After all, the Thirteenth is an eastern North Carolina district centered on Johnston County, a suburban county directly to the south and east of Raleigh. But Hines’s geographical affinities make more sense when one considers that he has shopped for an amenable district for over a year. First, he intended, rather strangely, to challenge Congresswoman Virginia Foxx from the right. (Few congresspeople are more right-wing than Foxx.) When his role model Madison Cawthorn endorsed Ms. Foxx, Hines shifted to a Triad-area district closer to his home but still not where he lived. Donald Trump, then, suggested that he shift his political ambitions all the way down east, and here he is appearing with the Donald on a stage in Johnston.

These regions have little in common regarding their economics, culture or community interests. He cares about the whole state! he might protest. But if that is the case, he could easily run for statewide office either this year or in 2024. Several Democratic Council of State members barely won their races in 2020, and he would stand a fair chance of picking up their seats. Given that he has a law degree, Hines could even run for judicial office this very year. But the United States House seems more interesting and prestigious, and he has been willing to travel the distance of a Tar Heel Marco Polo to find a district that may elect him to his dream job.

Clearly, Bo Hines is an opportunist. He cares little about the hard work of serving the public. Instead, he prefers to pursue a long-held dream of glory in the Valhalla of Washington, D.C. He seems to have little regard for the people whose votes he is chasing: His political ads betray a certain cynicism about what attracts voters in whatever district he happens to be running in at a given time. Lifting weights? Spare me. In his unbridled ambition and keen sense of entitlement, he represents everything that most voters rightly hate about our country’s politics.

Alexander H. Jones

Alexander Jones is an original contributor to PoliticsNC.